


Row Number 22

by artisturtle



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Short One Shot, Soft Supercorp, SuperCorp Sunday, SuperCorp on a Plane, supercorp au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29603409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisturtle/pseuds/artisturtle
Summary: A chance encounter at a plane flight -- and Lena is not an easy flier.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 193





	Row Number 22

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, here's a new SuperCorp AU. It's unbeta-ed so there will be mistakes, despite me trying to proofread this little runt. I hope you enjoy! This is just a short one-shot I sorta whipped out in a few hours so it's just that -- short. Anyway, enjoy my friends.

Airports astonish Kara.

There are different types of people, and with it comes different sorts of emotions - the anxiety from the rushers, the relaxed emotions from the slackers, the boredom emanating from those who are waiters, the longing and excitement for the meeters and the greeters, the sadness stemming of from the ones who just got left behind.

It had always puzzled her - to be in an enormous room full of people she doesn’t really know, yet people who share the same emotions she could feel, the same hurt she could feel. Sometimes, it makes her think that humans are more alike than they’ll ever know.

It’s her last year at Stanhope, and she’s heading back to campus. It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving, and her parents have decided to spend the weekend in Montana instead of at home. She had decided she’d meet them at the ski resort, and she’d just head back to Stanhope from there.

After almost two days of lounging and basking in the montane scenery of Montana, Kara is ready to dive back into the well-honed methodology of procrastination and late-night madness well before Christmas Break could start.

She had planned her flight already. She plans to spend most of the five-hour flight from Kalispell to National City. She had her copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ in the front pocket of her bag. On regular days, she would have brought something else, but she had been a little bit behind on her English school work schedule, so she's trying to squeeze in some work.

She gingerly dodges a woman carrying a large duffel bag with two toddlers in tow as she approaches the check-in counter. One of the toddlers screams, and Kara subconsciously feels the earphones tucked in the pockets of her jacket. She has protection from screaming children. The man behind the check-in counter hands her the boarding pass and she scrunches her brow when she sees the number.

She usually likes a window seat, and in a row with the number eight, because she thinks eight is her lucky number. This time, she is seated in 22B, but Kara decides not to take it as a bad omen. She's not one to believe in bad omens. She only believes in luck.

She’s always early to flights, so she’s already boarding when the PA system announces her flight is boarding for the first time. There’s only a few people in the plane, as most are accustomed to get in in the second or third PA announcements. She quickly stuffs the overhead compartment with her hand luggage and she sits on her assigned seat number. She tucks in her earphones and starts to read her book.

The plane starts filling up, and every once in a while, Kara lifts her head up to see if someone is headed to sit on 22A. Fifteen minutes had passed, and Kara began to feel hopeful. If no one will sit on 22A, she’d be free to switch seats and she could get a window seat. The seat next to hers, 22C, is also empty, giving her a lot of legroom. Kara inwardly smiles to herself. She starts to hope that no one will sit next to her. She picks up the book and starts reading again.

She sort of loses herself in-between the pages again, the music filling up her ears when she’s brought back to earth by a tap on her shoulder. She figures that the person who tapped her had even tried to talk to her, it’s just that she did not hear. Kara looks up.

And there she stands.

The girl is her type of pretty. She has beautiful eyes and a curved brow. She has a curtain of dark, black hair that framed her pale face. A red-tinted lip curves into a smirk, dancing on the corners of her mouth. She’s wearing a black-and-red suit that brings out the blue-green of her eyes. She has a nice smile.

Kara notices that last bit even before she fully had her eyes focused on the pretty girl’s face. She momentarily forgets that she’s already wearing her seatbelt that when she had tried to stand, she ends up just lifting her butt a few inches from the chair and her book falls with a clatter on the plane’s floor. She hurriedly unbuckles the seatbelt, just as the woman slides past her. Once Kara has unbuckled the belt, she bends down to pick up the book.

She watches the pretty girl as she sits on 22A. The girl starts to go through the black handbag on her lap, and Kara couldn’t help but say anything -- something.

“Sorry about that,” she mumbles, and the pretty girl with the pretty eyes and the pretty smile looks up at her.

Kara had never initiated to talk to a stranger before, let alone in a plane. Perhaps she had thrown one or two cursory regards, but it’s nothing more than that. She’s never even been seated next to a pretty person. Instead, she had the unerring ability to be partnered with the old dudes who snore a lot during flights or the poor wife who is always forced to manage the demands of her children who will be seated across the aisle. She’s never been one who gets to sit next to someone her age.

She’s never been one who gets to sit next to someone who is her type of pretty.

“Don’t worry,” she assures Kara. “Everything is fine,” she says and she goes back to rifling through her bag.

Kara could feel her courage wavering. She tries to think of something profoundly interesting, like a trivia or something -- basically anything that’ll keep the conversation lines open but something that is not at all weird and creepy to say.

Nothing comes up.

Kara doesn’t want to look like she’s storming the woman’s personal space. She decides enough’s enough. Slowly, she contemplates retreating back to her earphones and back to her reading when the pretty girl finally finds the thing she’s been looking for in her back.

The pretty girl holds up a copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ , the same edition as the one she’s reading.

Kara sucks in a breath. She has two rules for herself, and one of it is that if she ever finds a person who is reading the same book as she is reading or has read before, she’d strike up a conversation. It’s not an omen, just sheer luck. She never actually planned what to say to the girl **_yet_** (she had not gotten that far), but with some foolish courage and totally unprepared of what to say, Kara turns to the girl with a smile.

“It looks like we’re reading the same book,” Kara says and she holds up the book she’s reading.

The girl looks at Kara’s copy of the book, then her eyes look at the book on her lap. She could have dismissed it all, take it as if it’s just pure coincidence, but the girl’s lips turn into a smile and her eyes hold a look of wonder.

“Wow, this is cool,” she tells Kara, without a hint of anything in her voice but just pure wonder. Then, as if she had just remembered something, the girl shakes her head and lets out a chuckle. “I didn’t get your name.”

By now, Kara has felt a little braver, so she sticks her hand towards the pretty girl. “My name is Kara,” she proudly says. “Yours?”

“I’m Lena,” the girl, Lena, replies. “What’s brought you here at Kalispell? Thanksgiving?”

Kara shrugs. She knows by now that they’d get along. She smiles at Lena. “Yeah, I guess you can say that. My family and I went to Glacier Falls to celebrate the weekend. Can’t say I did not enjoy it, though.”

Lena leans back on her seat, rolling her eyes at the harsh, white lights above them. “I wish I could say the same! Thanksgiving is such a headache, especially with kids screaming and running around!”

Kara grins. “Oh no, don’t get me started with the kids!”

Kara and Lena talk through the first hour of the flight. They find out that they’re both headed back to National City after celebrating Thanksgiving with their family. Kara finds out that Lena is attending school in MIT, and she had just brought the book so she could pass time in the otherwise boring plane flight. In turn, Kara tells Lena that she brought the book because she needs to get homework done.

They end up telling each other about their families, talking about their Thanksgiving adventures (and misadventures). Soon enough, the flight attendants come out asking them if they ever want to get meals in-flight. They both get a vegetable wrap.

“I’m not strictly a vegetarian,” Lena tells her as they wait for their food orders to be brought to them. “I just decided to get the food because I want to--”

“--try it,” Kara finishes and it’s so silly, but she finds it funny how alike they are and Lena laughs along with her, definitely thinking of the same thing. “God, we are being ridiculously funny right now, Lena.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you and I think so alike!” Lena grins.

They dig in through the food, and they both agree that the in-flight food is shit, especially their vegetable wrap. Lena washes her mouth with a bottled lemonade and Kara washes hers with a Sprite. She grins at Lena, and they’re back at their conversation again. Their conversation steers to family members.

“My sister, Alex, hates flying,” Kara notes.

“Wait, your sister’s name is Alex?” Lena asks, her eyes wide with amusement. “My brother’s name is Lex, but it’s short for Alexander.”

Kara laughs. “Nice try, but my sister’s full name is Alexandra,” she says mockingly, even though she doesn’t really mean it.

Lena playfully eyes her. “Oh come on, it’s basically the same thing,” she insists. “Don’t tell me you had an asshole cousin who constantly bullied you and was named Jerry?”

Kara sits there, stumped. “Oh, God, that is so accurate! How is that possible?”

Lena only laughs.

They talk through the in-flight movie. They talk in such a way that the flight staff thinks they know each other. They talk so much that it feels like they did know each other, as if their shared stories could create a shared past.

Suddenly, one of the flight attendants called for all of the passengers’s attention. Above her, the **SEAT BELT** sign turns on. Kara quickly fastens her seat belt. She knows what it means. Any minute now, they would feel turbulence up ahead.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. We are now crossing a zone of turbulence. Please return your seats and keep your seat belts fastened. Thank you,” the flight attendant announces and other flight attendants have checked to make sure their passengers are all buckled up.

Kara is an easy flier. She has no idea why, but Alex, her sister, had been such a fidgety one and she doesn’t understand what’s there to it. She turns to check on Lena, trying to see if she’s already buckled up. It’s then that she realizes Lena **_is not an easy flier._ **

Lena is clutching at her armrest, her breathing hitched and jagged. Beads of swear gather at her otherwise unblemished forehead. Her eyes are flitting, carelessly wandering across the interior of the plane, her surroundings, but never landing on Kara’s eyes or her face. She tries to look out of the window, but it’s dark. Her mouth is set into a thin line, anxious and tense.

“Gosh, with the amount of flying I do, you’d think I’d be used to this by now,” Lena says, laughing nervously. “I’m sorry Kara, I’m acting so strange. You might think I am such a wimp right now. Only wimps are scared of turbulence!”

Kara could tell that Lena is terribly afraid. It’s the kind of fear that thrums throughout your body and trumps whatever logic and rationality a person has. It's a kind of fear that seizes regardless how logical a person is. She watches Lena’s hands, ivory-colored and long, as it tightly clutches at the armrest between them. Her veins pop and bulge. Her fingertips are trembling horridly in a staccato against the harsh light of the plane.

“My Dad always told me I should just throw a blanket over my head and pretend I’m not on a plane when this happens,” she squirms at Kara and her nervous laugh is back again, as if she's trying to berate herself. “Like that’ll help.”

_Kara knows she has to do something._

Gently, she lays her hand over Lena’s trembling ones. Meeting Lena’s unsteady eyes, she whispers at her. “It’s okay, Lena. Let me help.”

Kara hears a soft exhale coming from Lena, and she inwardly smiles. She could feel Lena’s tight grip relaxing from the armrest as she pulled the armrest up so she could move freely as she helped Lena. She takes Lena’s copy of the book from her lap and puts it into the seat-pocket in front of her. Kara takes out the plastic-wrapped blanket, tearing the plastic open with a loud rip. Then, she flings the blanket over both of their heads.

“Hey, look at me,” she whispers at Lena, whose eyes are still flitting and unfocused. Finally, Lena lifts her gaze towards her eyes. “Let’s read Alice together, okay?”

Curling herself closer to Lena, Kara starts to read by the trail of light seeping through the thin and flimsy blanket. They sit with Alice underneath the tree on that golden afternoon, and she puts as much emotion into her voice as she reads. She tries to be as creative as she describes the rabbit rushing to the hole. She even adds some funny remarks. She feels a sudden dip as Lena curls into her, and she feels Lena’s clammy hands search her own.

She doesn’t mention it and keeps quiet about it, but she lets Lena hold her hand.

Kara keeps on reading, turning the pages with her free hand as all of their air inside their blanket-bubble turns to breath and her glasses become hazy with their breathing. She’s a few pages in when she starts to feel the plane steady off. Kara puts the book down for a moment, adjusting herself, but then Lena leans into her.

Gently, Kara re-positions herself so Lena could curl into her body in the right angle. She tries to offer Lena the comfortable inclination, as far as comfort can go in a cramped plane seat. In her jostle, the book drops on the floor, but Kara just lets it be. She figures she could pick it up later, for now, what’s important is Lena.

She pulls the blanket closer, letting the two of them fall asleep.

**(#)**

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so let me know what you feel about it? Good, bad? Meh? If you like it, hit that kudos button below.
> 
> Also hit up my bird app @artisturtle because I have a lonely life.


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